Whatever form it takes, an essential part of the auto bailout should include corporate leadership change. In other words, the captain of the Exxon Valdez who ran the tanker into calamity in Alaska should not be retained; or the captain who ran the Staten Island ferry boat into the pier killing people should not be retained; or the head of FEMA who ran the people of New Orleans into disaster during the hurricane should not be retained; or the army general who sat still while Walter Reed hospital crumpled should not be retained. The auto CEOs who went against the environment and against the commonwealth by building big, gas-guzzling, fossil-fuel depleting, climate-polluting, uneconomical SUVs put the country on the road to disaster and their companies into financial ruin.

There has been too much bad judgement and too many major mistakes. Heads must roll.

A new crew must be brought in to reinstall some confidence in the

American people. As Senator Dodd and Tom Friedman said, “The people that wrecked the company should not be allowed to continue wrecking it with our tax dollars.”